repeat my conviction that these lectures are impossible without a pause button, but unbelievable with one.

"if a society deviates from a viewpoint sufficiently, it dooms itself to annihilation."

"merely as a consequence of the progression of time, the presuppositions on which any state are founded tend to become less and less relevant."

"the deluge myth is almost universally disseminated; it is documented in all the continents."

"there's the sleep that punctuates periods of consciousness, and there's the great sleep at the end of life which is characterized by the complete cessation of consciousness."

"that's what a garden is: it's nature given form by culture."

"hindu philosophers say, as their churches and cathedrals are covered in erotic drawings, if you can't get past the erotic drawings, that's the domain that you should still inhabit."

"it's very difficult to be transcendent and enlightened when you see someone who's sick lying in a ditch."

"human beings are the only creatures that seem to live at odds with their own experience, and it's not so unreasonable suppose that it's our dawning capacity for self-consciousness that put us into that position."

"that's exactly what happens to you when you grow up. if you're reasonably socialized and properly looked after, then your curiosity gets the better of you and you keep going out into the world until what your parents have established for you is no longer sufficient for you. and as a consequence of that movement out into the world, you find out all sorts of things characteristic of your own life that not only your parents can't precisely explain to you, but even the broader formal structures of your culture have a very difficult time handling. and when you finally do encounter such realities and allow their effect on you to fully manifest itself, well then you're finally independent and you no longer can return home. but from that point forward you're also burdened, as adam is burdened when he loses his paradisal un-self-consciousness, with the full revelation of what it means to be limited and alive."